SERPENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does serpent mean? 

• SERPENT (noun)
  The noun SERPENT has 3 senses:

1. limbless scaly elongate reptile; some are venomous

2. a firework that moves in serpentine manner when ignited

3. an obsolete bass cornet; resembles a snake

  Familiarity information: SERPENT used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SERPENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Limbless scaly elongate reptile; some are venomous

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

ophidian; serpent; snake

Hypernyms ("serpent" is a kind of...):

diapsid; diapsid reptile (reptile having a pair of openings in the skull behind each eye)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "serpent"):

colubrid; colubrid snake (mostly harmless temperate-to-tropical terrestrial or arboreal or aquatic snakes)

blind snake; worm snake (wormlike burrowing snake of warm regions having vestigial eyes)

constrictor (any of various large nonvenomous snakes that kill their prey by crushing it in its coils)

elapid; elapid snake (any of numerous venomous fanged snakes of warmer parts of both hemispheres)

sea snake (any of numerous venomous aquatic viviparous snakes having a fin-like tail; of warm littoral seas; feed on fish which they immobilize with quick-acting venom)

viper (venomous Old World snakes characterized by hollow venom-conducting fangs in the upper jaw)

Holonyms ("serpent" is a member of...):

Ophidia; Serpentes; suborder Ophidia; suborder Serpentes (snakes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A firework that moves in serpentine manner when ignited

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("serpent" is a kind of...):

firework; pyrotechnic ((usually plural) a device with an explosive that burns at a low rate and with colored flames; can be used to illuminate areas or send signals etc.)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An obsolete bass cornet; resembles a snake

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("serpent" is a kind of...):

cornet; horn; trump; trumpet (a brass musical instrument with a brilliant tone; has a narrow tube and a flared bell and is played by means of valves)

 Context examples 

“Too much ’Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!” Wolf Larsen shouted after. “This one”—indicating me with his thumb—“fancies sea-serpents and monkeys just now!”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But that autumn the serpent got into Meg's paradise, and tempted her like many a modern Eve, not with apples, but with dress.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I'll put my hand in no man's hand, said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing, and sobbing, to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water, until I have—blown to fragments—the—a—detestable—serpent—HEEP!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo, and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces?

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In an instant his strange headgear began to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here and there high serpent heads projected out of the water, cutting swiftly through it with a little collar of foam in front, and a long swirling wake behind, rising and falling in graceful, swan-like undulations as they went.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At Kimberham Bridge the carriage-lamps were all lit, and it was wonderful, where the road curved downwards before us, to see this writhing serpent with the golden scales crawling before us in the darkness.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Their next business is from herbs, minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed, excrements, barks of trees, serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men’s flesh and bones, birds, beasts, and fishes, to form a composition, for smell and taste, the most abominable, nauseous, and detestable, they can possibly contrive, which the stomach immediately rejects with loathing, and this they call a vomit; or else, from the same store-house, with some other poisonous additions, they command us to take in at the orifice above or below (just as the physician then happens to be disposed) a medicine equally annoying and disgustful to the bowels; which, relaxing the belly, drives down all before it; and this they call a purge, or a clyster.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Deeply affected, and changed in a moment to the image of despair, Mr. Micawber regarded the serpents with a look of gloomy abhorrence (in which his late admiration of them was not quite subdued), folded them up and put them in his pocket.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)